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ADDRESS 



-OF- 



u 







dge A r 'W Terrell 



OF AUSTIN, TEXAS, 



BEFORE 



The Athen^um and Rusk Societies 



OF THE 



University of Texas, 



Delivered June 13, 1884 



AUSTIN. 
Warner & Co., Printers. 

1884. 



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Address of Judge A. W. Terrell. 



Gentlemen of the Literary Societies, Ladies and Citizens : 

At this the first public exhibition made by the students of 
the University of Texas, I can think of no better theme than 
the University itself, as a factor in the prosperity of the 
State, and in promoting the happiness of the people. 

Texas, with her three hundred and eleven thousand school 
children, who are receiving instruction in free schools through 
more than seven thousand teachers, free of charge to par- 
ents, or with taxation so low as scarcely to be felt, exhibits 
a spectacle of local governmental beneficence never before 
witnessed in so young a State. Other governments can 
boast of more splendid and expensive school systems, but 
they are sustained by taxes on the accumulated wealth of 
generations. Ours is not the outgrowth of time and of in- 
herited wealth, but was provided for by the wise foresight of 
men who, in the very hour ot rescuing a broad domain from 
barbarism, consecrated it to freedom and dedicated half of it 
to the instruction of their posterity. " 

But elimentary education alone will neither preserve nor 
advance a State. It must be supplemented with a knowledge 
of the arts and sciences among the advanced thinkers and 
workers in every department of life, and by an ardent pa- 
triotism which, like that^of Curtius, will regard the preser- 
vation of the State as the highest duty of the citizen. 

THOSE WHO MADE THE UNIVERSITY POSSIBLE. 

And so it is, young gentlemen, that, before speaking of this 
University, free for the poor and the rich as it is, and will be, 
let me ask you to consider the men who long ago made this 
Texas free; let me remind you of who they were, of how 



they wrought in poverty for your good, and hoped for that 
University which they died without seeing. 

Never in the history of America, but once, has a body of 
men been assembled who equalled in boldness and sagacity 
the fifty-six delegates who met in convention in the town of 
Washington on the Brazos, and promulgated on the 2d day 
of March, 1836, the formal declaration of Texas independ- 
ence. 

In that declaration of their grievances against Mexico, 
they used this language : ' "It has failed to establish a sys- 
tem of public^education, although possessed of boundless re- 
sources (the public domain), and although it is an axiom in 
political science that unless a people are educated and en- 
lightened, it is idle to expect a continuance of civil liberty or 
a capacity for self-government." 

Fifteen days after those fifty-six men made that declaration, 
and committed the issue to the Supreme Arbiter of the des- 
tinies of nations, they signed the first constitution of the Ee- 
public of Texas, in which they used this language : 

" It shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances 
will permit, to provide by law for a general system of educa- 
tion." 

That declaration was the babe in the manger, whilst idol- 
itry was on the throne. Houston, who signed both the con- 
stitution and declaration, went at once with his associate 
delegates to command in the field, and thirty-five days after- 
wards avenged on the field of San Jacinto the butchery, of 
the Alamo, which occurred just eleven days before the con- 
stitution was signed. Thus Texas made her demand for pub- 
lic education in the midst of a war for her existence, and it 
was made by those who went from the council chamber to 
the field, and periled their lives to secure it. 

Let no Texas youth ever fail to honor the memory of those 
who signed that declaration and that constitution, and who 
stood with Houston, Lamar and Burleson in the shock of 
battle to maintain them. It was not strange that such men, 
standing almost in the presence of an invading enemy, should 
remember the cause of education, when we consider who they 



3 

were, for among them were educated gentlemen whose pres- 
ence would have added dignity to any parliament on earth. 

UNIVERSITY MEN OF TEXAS IN 1836. 

History, while transmitting their names, tells you nothing of 
their accomplishments. Among them were Houston and 
Busk, afterwards Senators in the United States. Collings- 
worth, an accomplished scholar and afterwards the first Chief. 
Justice of the Eepublic, was there ; Antonio Navarro, a gradu- 
ate of the University of Mexico; Dr. Motley, an accomplished 
scholar, slain a few days afterwards at San Jacinto; Carson, a 
distinguished graduate of the University of North Carolina. 
David Thomas, also a ripe scholar and the first Attorney 
General of the Eepublic. Geo. C. Childress, who penned the 
Declaration of Independence, with Menard, the two Fishers, 
Potter, Briscoe, Gazley, Conrad, Stewart, Stepp, Eains, and 
still others were there, a majority of whom were University 
graduates, and signers of that first Constitution, 

Never did Camilius exhibit for his native Eonie, or Hermo- 
dius and Aristogoton for Athens, a more ardent devotion than 
did those men manifest for this Texas, the land of their 
adoption. 

UNIVERSITY GRADUATES IN THE CONVENTION OF 1776. 

Just fifty-six delegates signed the Texas Declaration of 
Independence, and there were just fifty-six who signed that 
other Declaration on the Fourth of July, 1776, at Philadelphia. 
I have been curious to search out how many of the signers of 
the American Declaration of Independence were also gradu- 
ates of Universities, as illustrating the influence of University 
education on the progress of freedom among the masses, and 
I find that forty-three of them were graduates of Universities 
or colleges in Europe or America, or were classical scholars. 
Harvard furnished eight, Cambridge three, Yale three, Edin- 
burg three, Paris one and Oxford sent two from her halls, still 
fragrant with the memories of John Hampden and his defi- 
ance of arbitrary taxation.* 

-'Note. — From an examination of many sources of information, it appears that 
the following signers of the Declaration of I dependence on July 4, 1776, were Uni- 
versity students: John Hancock, William W lliams, William Hooper, Eldridge 
Gerry, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, William Ellery and Samual Adams, all 



It is a slander upon such men to say that when they came to 
make a Constitution, they built wiser than they knew ; they 
built well, because in the universities they had learned to 
explore the wisdom of the past, to understand the causes 
which destroyed the freedom of man, and they built wisely 
because they knew how to build. They possessed a degree 
of learning, and knowledge of the history of governments in 
all ages, seldom now found in legislative bodies, and this is 
the more remarkable when we consider that in 1746 there 
were but seventeen graduates of colleges and universities 
among all the people of the colony of ~New York. From this 
we learn the deference paid to scholarly attainments in 1776, 
and the grand results which come to a people, among whom 
the aristocracy of letters is assigned the first rank. By such 
men, education for the masses was first demanded in Texas. 

HISTORY OF UNIVERSITY LEGISLATION. 

During the administration of President Lamar, an act was 
passed in January, 1839, by the Eepublic, setting aside four 
leagues of land in each county for the establishment of an 
academy therein, and fifty leagues of land for the establish- 
ment and endowment of two universities. On the 16th of 
March, 1840, the Congress appropriated for the use of each 
county an additional league of land, to be used by the school 
commissioners of the counties, one-half in purchasing scien- 
tific apparatus for a county academy, and the other half for 
county schools, and they prohibited the employment of any 
teacher in an academy unless he was a regular graduate of 
some college or university. The Constitution of 1845 dedi- 
cated one tenth of the revenues of the State to the cause of 

graduates of Harvard. Oliver Wolcott, Philip Livingston and Lewis Morris, grad- 
uates of Yale. Thomas Lynch, Arthur Middleton and Thomas Nelson were grad- 
uates of Cambridge. Kichard Stockton, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Joseph Hewes grad- 
uated at Princeton. Thomas Jefferson, Carter Braxton and Benjamin Harrison, 
graduates of William and Marv College. Charles Carroll graduated in France at 
the College of Paris. James Wilson, Thomas Hay ward and John Wisherspoon grad- 
uated at Edinburgh, in Scotland. Matthew Thornton graduated at Worcester. Fran- 
cis Lewis graduated at Westminster. William Paca graduated at the College of Phil- 
adelphia. Thomas Hopkinson graduated at the University of Pennsylvania. In 
addition to the above the following delegates received classical educations : .Edward 
Rutledge, Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, Josiah Bartlett, George Bead. George Clv- 
mer, Thomas McKean, James Smith, Csesar Bodnev, George Boss. Bichard Henry 
Lee., Thomas Stone and Francis Lightfoot Lee. Thomas Stone was instructed in the 
classics by his mother, and Benjamin Franklin mastered the Latin, Spanish and 
Italian languages after his marriage. 



public education and expressly forbade the disposition of 
any of the common school lands, either by sale or lease for a 
longer period than twenty years. It was not until Feb. 11, 
1858, when a bill for the establishment of one university was 
introduced by Lewis T. Wigfall in the State Senate and sus- 
tained by him in a masterly report, that the idea of two 
universities was abandoned, and one was provided for, with 
an endowment which promised to be munificent. 

SENATOR WIGF ALL'S REPORT. 

And here let me rescue from the oblivion in which it has 
slept for twenty-six years a portion of the report made by 
Senator Wigfall, then in the State Senate, on the proposition 
to establish one university. He said : " It must be the wish 
of every patriot that all sectional differences that now unhap- 
pily prevail, founded on mere locality, should cease. Estab- 
lish two universities, one in the east and the other in the west, 
and the youths in different sections of the State will be edu- 
cated at their respective institutions. Will not rivalry at 
once spring up between the two institutions ? Will not the 
youths of each be imbued with their sectional prejudices! 
May not different systems of political philosophy be taught 
in the rival institutions ? Texas should be a unit. No friend- 
ships are so lasting as those formed in youth. No ties so 
binding as those of college life. The chum is a brother, not 
of accident but of choice. Then let us bring our youths from 
the east and the west, from the north and the south, and 
educate them at one common institution, teach them to feel 
that they are Texans. When their hearts are most suscepti- 
ble of impressions, allow them to form friendships, which 
will last through life. When they meet on the great theater 
of action let them meet as brothers. Establish two institu- 
tions and you will already have formed two states. Those 
who had been educated out of a common fund would meet in 
your legislative halls like strangers, they will act like strang- 
ers, they will feel like strangers. A division of the state has 
ceased to be thought of except by those who love place and 
■power more than country, those for whom there are not offices 



6 



enough. If Texas is to remain in the Union, as must be the 
wish of every patriot, her power and influence will' be dimin- 
ished by division. Texas came into the Union as an Empire. 
Let her remain in it as an Empire, or go out of it as an 
Empire. " 

ONE UNIVERSITY REQUIRED. 

Thus was the legislation of 1839, which required two uni- 
versities, changed, and the establishment of one provided for. 
It was never the purpose at that day, in requiring more than 
one, to establish two sectional universities. The journals of 
the Congress show, that in the bill as it was first introduced 
requiring an eastern and a western university, the words 
"eastern" and "western" were stricken out and the word 
"two" retained, in order that one university for each sex 
might be established if deemed expedient. And so an em- 
bryo university was created on paper in 1858, but no provis- 
ion was made for its 'actual location and establishment, 
though one hundred thousand dollars was then in the treasury, 
set aside at the same session for its use. The branches of 
learning to be taught were prescribed, its administration pro- 
vided for, and though it was declared that it should be lo- 
cated " at such place and in such manner*" as might there- 
after be provided by law, no law* for that purpose was en- 
acted. 

When the Constitution of 1866 was adopted, it required 
the Legislature, " at an early day," to make " such provis- 
ions by law as will organize and put in operation the univer- 
sity." Under that Constitution a law was passed contem- 
plating two universities, in disregard of the Constitution, 
which required one. It provided that one should be called 
the " East Texas University " — the first and only legislation 
which looked to sectional institutions. Fortunately for the 
cause of education and for Texas, that act was never carried 
into effect. 

Nine years afterwards, when the Constitution of 1875 was 
adopted, the establishment of one university was again re- 
quired. Under that Constitution an act was introduced and 



passed under which one million of acres of land were sur- 
veyed for the university, and another million was secured by 
act of April 10, 1883. 

PRESENT UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHED. 

On the 30fch of March, 1881, an act was passed creating, as 
it now exists, the University of Texas, and which provided 
for its administration and government, as well as for its loca- 
tion and the erection of its buildings — just forty-two years 
after the first act of the Eepublic which contemplated it was 
passed — and it now stands on the ground selected for it un- 
der direction of President Lamar, forty years before the found- 
ation of the building was laid. 

EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENT IN TEXAS. 

And now Texas, with a university endowment of half a 
million in money and bonds, besides $71,000 of available 
university funds and a permanent land endowment which, 
judiciously administered, will make ours the best endowed 
University in the South or West, and with a permanent public 
free school fund of over $5,000,000 and thirty millions of 
acres of school land, worth over $60,000,000 in money, what 
but the blundering folly of idiotic legislation shall prevent 
this State from soon realizing, in the education of all her 
youth, the dream of those whose valor and foresight pro- 
vided for these splendid endowments? 

NO SECTARIAN EDUCATION. 

Profiting by history, Texas has wisely provided in her or- 
ganic act, that the fruits of taxation shall not be bestowed on 
sectarian schools, and written it in the act creating the Uni- 
versity that no course of instruction of a sectarian character 
shall be taught therein — thus announcing that public educa- 
tioi*by the State is to prepare man to be an intelligent citi- 
zen of earth, that he may worthily perform his duties here ? 
leaving to individual efforts, to religion and conscience, the 
high mission of qualifying him for his destiny in another 
sphere. 



8 



CO-EDUCATION OF THE SEXES. 

Texas has also recognized the fact that civilization cannot 
be advanced by man alone, and that the accomplished mother 
is a more potent instrument in stimulating the ambition and 
moulding the character of her boy, than the father can be. 
The right of young ladies to enjoy equal advantages with 
their brothers in the University is secured by law, and 
Texas will see to it that this right shall never be curtailed. 

Kor is there anything realy new in this. The University of 
Bologna, perhaps the oldest in Europe, not only admitted 
ladies as students more than two hundred years ago, but was 
made famous eighty years ago by Clo tilde Tambroni, its pro- 
fessor in Greek, and on LauriBassi it conferred the degree of 
doctor of philosophy more than a hundred years ago. In the 
Eoyal University of Italy, ladies are admitted as students on 
equal terms with young gentlemen, and even Oxford and 
Cambridge in England have lately followed that example. 

This is not the place to answer at length why that grand 
old University of Bologna with its free charter from Fredric 
Barbarosa, standing for ages like an oasis in the desert, in its 
efforts to advance woman, was almost powerless to enlarge 
the sphere of her usefulness. Custom and the unwise self- 
ishness of her master, alike condemned woman to wait for 
the dawn of a more liberal spirit in the nineteenth century. 

In America the co-education of the sexes in universities is 
no longer an experiment. Wherever it has been attempted 
the uniform high character and deportment of the young 
ladies, and their ambition to excel, shown by their ability of- 
ten to secure the highest collegiate honors, attest the 
wisdom of admitting them on equal terms to the same 
class room with him who, while being refined by the associa- 
tion, may impart to her something of the self-reliance of his 
more rugged nature. 

HIGH EDUCATION NECESSAltY TO A NATION'S EXISTENCE. 

The extensive cultivation, by the largest practicable num- 
ber, of the highest order of science and art in every depart- 
ment of industry, is a necessity in the present and will be in 



9 



the future, to preserve not only the integrity but the very ex : 
istence of any nation. That necessity results from the fact, 
that science and art have been directed in modern times to 
the comfort, well being and elevation of the masses of people 
existing in each nation, which constitute the measure of its 
power. Such was not the mission of learning in the earlier 
days of the world's history. Instead of ministering to the 
advancement of the great masses of the people, it was be- 
stowed on inan-worship, on that of personal gods, and to 
increase the power of the priesthood over the multitude. 

The seats of learning for many centuries were scattered 
from the mouth of the Euphrates to the straits of Gibraltar, 
and on both sides of the Mediterranean, and yet where among 
the splendid ruins that are left will the curious traveler find 
one monument to commemorate the freedom or the happiness 
of the people who erected them 1 All were for the worship 
of strange gods, to deify popular heroes, or to tell posterity 
how conquerors had prostrated the liberties of neighboring 
States. 

KNOWLEDGE THE MEASURE OF NATIONAL POWER. 

A nation's knowledge among all its people is the measure 
of its power, while ignorance among the masses is a stand- 
ing bribe for the spoiler. And so it was, that in past ages, 
while the multitude remained in darkness, and learning was 
confined to patrician classes and the ministering priests of 
idolatry, there could be no permanence in government. 

THE LEARNING OF ANTIQUITY. 

A knowledge of astronomy was cultivated six hundred 
years before the advent of Christ. The Chaldeans, Egyp- 
tians and Chinese studied the planetary system, but their 
researches were fostered only by astrology, even as Alchemy 
fostered chemistry, and both were used by exclusive classes 
to impose on ignorance, or bolster the claims of prophecy 

The philosophy of their greatest men was abstract, mythi- 
cal, and speculative, and served no practical end in promot- 
ing the happiness of the whole people. They deduced their 
morals from the nature of man rather than from that of God? 



10 



and hence their deities personafied both virtue and vice. 
Though some of their philosophers have left us sublime 
proofs of the existence and perfections of one god, the 
academies doubted and the epicurians denied his providence. 
They had indeed their republics in name, but they worshiped 
gods of conflicting attributes, and the rational progress of 
man was impossible. 

That philosophy which embraces the universe of phenom- 
ena, including every fact which can be grasped by human 
cognizance, was to antiquity a sealed book, if we except that 
of Aristotle, whose learning, transmitted through the schools 
of Arabia, helped centuries afterwards to shape the philoso- 
phy of Europe. It shed a fitful gleam of light in Southern 
Europe .while Plato and Aristotle lived, only rendered the 
more conspicuous by the darkness that followed. 

LEARNING OF ANCIENTS NOT FOR THE PEOPLE. 

No Shiloh whose teachings enfranchised the people from 
ignorance appeared ; for though Pythagoras, five hundred 
years before Christ, contrasted the practice and results of vir- 
tue and vice, insisted on a pure life, and made the striving 
after the divine likeness in the elements of goodness and mer- 
cy the standard of duty, he could establish no league among 
earth's rulers to enforce his teaching, by showing mercy to 
the laboring masses in lifting them from ignorance. 

At a time when eloquence was most esteemed, and freedom 
almost deified, it was freedom for the patrician, whose con- 
tempt for the people was illustrated by Cicero when he said, 
" I am of opinion that though a thing be not foul in itself, 
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multi- 
tude." The same contempt was shown by Phocion when he 
said, " What mean thing have I done that ihz people applaud 
mef Science and art were handmaids to military power, 
and though the chisel of the sculptor fashioned forms of 
beauty, nothing else is left but the vast sepulchres of rulers, 
temples devoted to superstition, triumphal monuments to 
commemorate the destruction of freedom, or castles in which 
brute force entrenched itself. 



11 



THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 

Even the feudal system of later days was not for the peo- 
ple, but subdivided the one-man power and multiplied their 
masters. The science of government was restricted to prop- 
ping some established religion, or distributing power among 
hereditary rulers, in disregard of the improvement of the 
people, who were their ignorant instruments. As the feudal 
system gave way and the work of the printer began, a new 
era began to dawn on humanity. You will search in vain 
among the relics of antiquity for one monument erected to 
commemorate the happiness or wisdom of the people, for 
they all tell of the misdirected labor, through centuries, of the 
buried millions of our race. 

REVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

In Europe it was not until education passed measurably 
from the monastaries and cathedrals to the free universities of 
states and cities, that its classic and intellectual revival began. 
Until then, learning was confined to cathedrals and their 
dependent schools in the cities, which, while possessing the 
learning of antiquity, were intent only in perpetuating it for 
and confining it to, the church. The University of Paris, 
controlled by the high functionaries of the church, with its 
dependent schools and colleges, monopolized in France the 
work of high education, until it was suppressed by the revo- 
lution in 1793, and never afterwards until 1875 did France 
pass a law permitting the establishment of universities inde- 
pendent of government and ecclesiastical control. Nor was 
the great work of high education more free from sectarian 
domination in the grand universities of England, for no stu- 
dent could be admitted to the fellowship either of Oxford or 
Cambridge without declaring that he was a member of the 
Church of England, until the test act of 1871, which emanci- 
pated education from the restrictions of bigotry. 

DWARFING- INFLUENCE OF BIGOTRY. 

For fifteen hundred years the world produced few great 
thinkers except those who devoted themselves to the church. 
Science languished, discovery paused, and the human mind, 



12 



fettered by ignorance, refused to advance. During all that 
period, Europe produced no successor to Archimides, and yet 
on her southern border, one peninsula where the people for a 
season ruled, produced in the same half century Socrates 
Aristotle and Plato. No better commentary can be found on 
the dwarfing influence of ecclesiastic control on science in 
Europe, than the fact that while the elements of Euclid of 
Alexandria were familiar to the Moors of Spain and to the 
the learned Mohammedans of Arabia, they were not trans- 
lated into any European language until the twelfth century. 
Would I, by reminding you that theology once monopolized 
and dwarfed science, disparage the sectarian colleges now 
nobly struggling for recognition in Texas ? Far from it. 
They feci the liberal impulse of the age ; theirs is now .the 
noble and two-fold work of advancing knowledge and aiding 
to transmit faith, which must challenge our admiration, no 
matter what the creed*when it is founded on the cardinal 
truths of Christianity. 

CHURCH AND STATE. 

But religious laith pertains to the domain of conscience, and 

no man's taxes should be used to enable others to teach a 

creed, involving the destiny of the soul, which his conscience 

cannot approve. If American institutions have instructed 

our race in anything, it is that man's happiness is promoted 

by divorcing the church from politics and civil administration, 

and by leaving science and the arts, when fostered by the 

state, free to advance him, un trammeled by the magnates or 
creed of any sect. 

OUR PROGRESS AND OUR DANGER. 

Our progress is wonderful, but the magnitude of the work 
still to be done in fitting by education all the people for intelli- 
gent citizenship, is startling in the light of recent statistics ; 
for we find that in 1880, twenty -nine per cent of our population in 
Texas over ten years old were unable to write their names; while 
in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, 
North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas from 35 to 55 per 
cent of the people could not write. In twelve States from 



13 

15 to 22 per cent of men and women over twenty-one years 
old were unable to write in 1880. There are over five mil- 
lions and a quarter of people, white and black, in the United 
States unable to write, and this though State governments, 
corporate and individual enterprises, are sustaining 280,000 
teachers, who instruct annually 10,000,000 of children, at a 
cost of $83,000,000. 

Well will it be for us if this mighty effort to elevate the 
masses is not only sustained, but, within constitutional 
bounds, increased, when we consider that our institutions can 
have no other rational basis for security than the intelligence 
and virtue of the people. 

CONDITION OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 

Passing from the common schools to consider the statistics 
of colleges and universities, we find that in 1881, of fifty mil- 
lions of our people there were but thirty-two thousand stu- 
dents seeking a higher instruction than is afforded by the com- 
mon schools, or one in every three hundred and twelve pu- 
pils. Of that thirty-two thousand, there were but fourteen 
thousand pursuing a classical course, or one to every seven 
hundred and fourteen pupils in the schools. Now, of these 
fourteen thousand students in a classical course in 1881, but 
one in every ten would graduate in a full collegiate course, 
thus furnishing annually but one accompliished scholar, in the 
the colleges and universities of all the States, to every seven 
thousand pupils being educated. Of those who graduated 
there were but four hundred and sixty who remained as grad- 
uate students. So that of those who in 1881 still pursued 
their studies after graduating, so as to thoroughly prepare 
themselves for transmitting to others the advanced learning 
of the age, there was but oue to every 118,000 of our popula- 
tion, or about ten to every million of our people. Under a 
high curriculum, not one even of that small number was a 
student on Texas soil. 

PROFESSORS AND COLLEGES INCREASE FASTER THAN 

STUDENTS. 

The last decade reveals startling facts also as to the relative 
increase of facilities for university instruction, and the num- 



14 

ber who seek scientific and classical education ; for it will be 
seen that while the universities and colleges increased thirty- 
nine per cent between 1870 and 1880, and instructors in the 
higher branches of learning increased forty-eight per cent, 
the increase of students was but twenty-one per cent ! ! ! 
How shall this be accounted for and how remedied. 

CORRUPTING TENDENCY OF WEALTH. 

Its cause will be found in the tendency of the hour to elevate 
riches above wisdom. The wild thirst for money-getting is 
the dominating passion of this age everywhere, and humiliat- 
ing as the truth is, we seem to be increasing in wealth more 
rapidly than we progress in true refinement and civilization. 
The almost barbaric pomp with which riches suddenly ac- 
quired now surrounds itself, exhibited in conspicuous colors, 
and announcing itself in gaudy equipages, is corrupting the 
suscej)tible mind of youth, who, in this age, needs to be re- 
minded, that the citizen who has explored the mysteries of 
science, who is familiar with the history of his race in its pro- 
gress through time, and is blessed with competency, is a 
prince among men. He looks down from his serene height on 
all the glittering gew-gaws of the mere money-getter, and in- 
stead of breathing an animal existence in the lap of wealth, 
he rejoices in the delights of an atmosphere which the man of 
letters alone can enjoy. 

DUTY OF THE STATE TO LEARNED MEN. 

But to make the young men of Texas believe this in a traf- 
icking age, in which the attainment of wealth seems to be the 
great aim of existence, something more than university op- 
portunities is needed. The State and its board of regents 
must become active agents in making distinction in letters at- 
tractive. One right step has already been taken in the be- 
stowment of salaries which have brought here teachers in 
each department with national reputations. When the State 
fixes, as we have done, a value on educated brain at a higher 
figure than she pays her most exalted civil officers, much has 
has been done — but more remains to be done. Substantial 
honors and prizes of free scholarships after graduating, and 



15 



professional advancement, must be offered as rewards for dis- 
tinction, no matter what they may cost, until a chord shall 
vibrate in the bosom of every talented youth in Texas to ad- 
vance and win them. 

HOW ADVANCED LEAKNLNG MUST BE POPULARIZED. 

Learning must be exalted and made as attractive in 
Texas as it is in England and Germany, and public 
sentiment must accord to the learned teacher a place in the 
scale of social being above any man, no matter how rich, 
who is less worthy and intelligent, and must award him his 
proper share of influence and dignity. 

A free scholarship before graduating in the University is 
the attractive prize offered by some States to those who distin- 
guish themeelves in preparatory schools. But that prize now 
is offered in Texas, without labor or merit to every student in 
the State. Something more must be done to dignify learn- 
ing, and recruit the ranks of graduates. 

In this great work the State will move when the educated 
gentlemen of Texas and an independent press will co-operate 
to rebuke the demagogues who pander to ignorance in dis- 
paraging a university education, and not before. And the 
beleagured at Lucknow did not hear with more thrilling joy 
the wild scream of Havelock's bag pipes, as he moved to the 
rescue, than will the friends of civilization hear the first full 
chorus of awakened public sentiment that will silence those 
demagogues. Let prizes of money reward distinction in 
classes, for we may rest assured that the student who wins 
such a prize will often feel the need of it to aid him in mount- 
ing the still higher walks of learning, and thus society and 
the State will be repaid a thousand fold for the bounty 
which creates one more instrument to enlarge the bounds of 
knowledge. 

The desire for the general bestowment of rudimental in- 
struction, which every philanthropist feels, is often simu- 
lated by the designing office hunter. Much education 
for the poor and low taxes for property holders, are the in- 
consistent pass-words to position, while the cause of higher 
education has found but few champions among us. 



16 



THE STATE'S DUTY TO COMMON SCHOOLS AND THE UNI- 
VERSITY CONTRASTED. 

When the State imparts primary instruction as a public 
duty, it is not done so much to extend the bounds of knowl- 
edge as to transmit that already possessed, and necessary for 
intelligent citizenship, to as many of the rising generation as 
will receive it. 

But when a State establishes and endows a University, its 
object must be discovered in^the public duty to train, for its 
own future use and glory, true talent wherever found among 
its children, to conserve civilization and stimulate to future 
discovery. 

The mission of the common free school is to transmit that 
knowledge which even the most common understanding may 
acquire, and which every citizen, no matter what his sphere 
of action, should possess. v 

The mission of the University is to furnish and equip those 
minds fitted by nature to acquire it, with that learning which 
can only be gained with time and labor, and to sustain in 
each department scientific explorers after further knowledge. 
The one, prepares the average mind of every class for the or- 
dinary duties of civil life; the other acts as a medium to 
transmit to the studious enquirer all in science and art that 
human labor has accomplished, and whose ministering priests 
in their studios and labratories are working and exploring 
pioneers, in advance of human discovery. 

PEOPLE MADE PROSPEROUS AS LEARNING ADVANCES. 

And can a State bestow its bounty on a nobler work than 
this % In every stage of modern progress we find that man's 
condition has been ameliorated and his power increased in pro- 
portion as colleges and universities disseminated learning 
among the people. The State tha^ will content itself with fos- 
tering public free schools alone, in which only the rudiments 
of learning are taught, must expect a population standing on a 
plane of sterile mediocrity, the genius of its sous suppressed 
for lack of nurture, and its civil administration in the hands 
of demagogues, or controlled by an imported element of su- 



1? 

perior culture. That all cannot or will not enjoy the bounty 
of the State by receiving a classical education, is no reason 
why it should be denied to any, since it is to be conferred by 
a university established and endowed without taxation. 

MISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY. 

No university was ever designed to accomplish the im- 
possible in the effort to polish dull mediocrity. The State's 
bounty in the endowment of ours, was not bestowed to force 
into its halls the youth who lacks either the brains or the am- 
bition to advance. It is a beacon light on the advance line of 
civilization, whose fires are only to be kept burning by ambi- 
tion and intelligence; and when these are possessed in an 
eminent degree by any youth in the common schools and 
academies of Texas, no matter how poor he may be, the 
means to accomplish him here will be at hand. 

The University is not alone for the rich. The freedom to 
every son and daughter in Texas, of proper age, to here 
enter, proclaims this truth. 

Europe in all her borders has no institution founded like 
this, in a spirit of universal beneficence, for it has no univer- 
sity like this, in which all who desire to be, may be instructed 
as free scholars of the State, whether rich or poor, exalted 
or humble. 

ITS BENEFITS CHIEFLY FOR POOR AND MIDDLE CLASSES. 

Our University is for those, whether rich or poor, whose 
resolutions and native endowments qualify them to receive 
its advantages, and, nine times out of ten, these qualifica- 
tions are found among the sons of the middle classes and the 
poor. The rich can, and do, send their sons and daughters 
abroad, draining the State of half a million of money every 
year to build up other schools, and (with rare exceptions) 
neither the parent nor the State receives much profit from 
the investment — for science is an exacting mistress, who be- 
stows her favors on mental labor in its solitude, and scorns 
the allurements of luxury. 

This University is not alone for the rich, but for the bright- 
eyed boy or maiden from our hills anci prairies, however 



is. 

poor, who will come here for knowledge, aspiring to excel; and 
those who do not thus aspire should never enter. 

DEMAGOGUES RIDING SCHOOL CHILDREN. 

I pity from my inmost soul the few carping place-hunters 
who periodically ride to the halls of legislation on the necks 
of little children, promising the paradise of elementary edu- 
cation for mediocrity, and yet sneering at the great work of 
university education by the State for those, whether many 
or few, whom God hath marked for leadership. 

"For I maintain that if Oxford had prepared but one John 
Hampden for England, or Harvard, and William and Mary Col- 
lege but one John Adams and one Thomas Jefferson for 
America, either people would have been gainers if they had 
exhausted their treasuries to endow those institutions. 

ARISTOCRACY OF INTELLIGENCE. 

There is in this country an aristocracy of wealth ; there is 
also an aristocracy of intelligence and intellect. 

The one is as often the creature of accident and guile as 
of honest thrift, but is always awarded in this golden age 
some homage, though a bar dexter be on its escutcheon. 
The other is created by God, and bearing His seal to its no- 
bility, comes upon earth instinct with power, and commis- 
sioned for leadership. To mould and fashion this heaven 
appointed aristocracy of mind, whether it dawns in the nest- 
er's cabin on the frontier, or is gently nurtured on the car- 
pets of the rich, is the high duty of the State and the mission 
of our University. He who would have the 'State bestow all 
her energies in the work of education on that which is elemen- 
tary, leaving the aspirations of gifted children, born in pov- 
erty, to yearn unsatisfied for that higher knowledge which 
the wisdom of ages has garnered, arraigns the wisdom of 
God, and would reverse His providence, which He has shown 
by establishining intellect, as in all things else, gradations of 
excellence, of capabilities, and of public usefulness. 

DUTY OF EDUCATED MEN. 

Let the men of culture in Texas move to the front, as they 
love their offspring and desire their development, and see to 



19 



it, that while our system of public free schools is improved 
and perfected, the great cause of secondary and university 
education is likewise fostered ; for the latter is a sacred leg- 
acy, purchased with a price by those who went before us. It 
was endowed without taxation from that which their valor 
won, and will remain the most enduring monument of their 
wisdom. 

DANGER TO CIVILIZATION. 

I affirm that unless virtue and scholarly attainments shall 
take rank above riches, not only in the public judgment, but 
in practical legislation, this boasted civilization is doomed. 

When the primitive man with stone weapons followed the 
chase like a beast of prey, reason was dormant and progress 
impossible, for every hour of life was needed to maintain ex- 
istence. When in the progress of time copper and iron were 
revealed to man, we may su])pose by accident, a great step in 
relieving him from labor was taken, and agriculture was made 
possible. But when steam, the printing press, and the spin- 
ning-jenny came comparatively in the same age with freedom 
for worship, mankind felt the impulse of progress like an 
electric shock, for labor was economized, learning easily trans- 
mitted, and time for discovery secured. Thus far, man has 
been elevated, his miseries soothed, and his life lengthened 
by science ; and yet suicides multiply as never before, and 
almost universal discontent abounds in the midst of apparent 
prosperity. Why is this? 

LAWS PROMOTING DISCONTENT. 

I believe the answer will be found partly in the fact, that 
even the machinery of representative government has been 
taken possession of by those who bestow more time in mak- 
ing laws under which favored classes may pile up riches than 
in elevating to their proper dignity the great thinkers and 
discoverers of the age. What else but discontent can be ex- 
pected when, after a free school and university has developed 
an original thinker and discoverer, at public expense, we find 
the government conferring on him by letters patent the ex- 
clusive right to coin wealth out of the masses from each dis- 
covery that may shorten man's labor or improve his condr 



• 20 



tion? Though the people may be benefited in the end, the 
price paid is the elevation of one more pampered citizen 
whose wealth was obtained through the sweat of the multi- 
tude, whose comfort he was inspired to advance. Far better 
for humanity if all science could be rewarded by the State in 
honors and pensions, leaving each invention to elevate man 
from the hour of its discovery, at the smallest cost. Far bet- 
ter that the scientist should be honored by distinctions con- 
ferred on him by the State than that he should be known for 
his luxuiy and wealth. Under one system the State would 
confer honor, and that competence which would dignify and 
popularize learning; under the other, it bestows patents and 
starts another factor in the caufes which elevate wealth and 
make the toiling multitude discontented. True, the scientist 
seldom becomes the millionaire. His patent when issued is 
soon owned by some expert money gatherer, or an artificial 
thing called a corporation, which also excites discontent, by 
the fact that it invades and monopolizes the fields of individ- 
ual enterprise. 

DUTY OF GOVERNMENT TO SCIENTISTS. 

If Franklin, Fulton and Morse, had been each sustained af- 
ter their discoveries on life salaries as members of a scienti- 
fic department of government, in view of the blessings which 
their genius bestowed on their race, the reward would have 
been just, and in harmony with the theory of a government 
for the whole people. Such honors, not being hereditary, 
could never endanger freedom, but would extend her area by 
dignifying science. The last humiliating spectacle of subor- 
dinating science to riches, is shown in an agreement said to 
have been made by the first discoverer of the age with a cor- 
poration, by which he agreed that his mind should belong to 
it, for he agreed for a sum of money to invent for it alone. 

The time is approaching, if man is to continue to advance 
when philosophy and science will no longer be valued for the 
money they will bring, but for their universal benefits, and 
for the honors and distinctions bestowed by the State on 
those distinguished in them. Learning must be exalted, and 



21 



the power and tendency of riches to control all civil distinc- 
tion stopped, or we will pass to a new sea of governmental 
experiment through the straits of anarchy. 

WARNING OF HISTORY. 

A praetorian guard once sold and delivered to the highest 
bidder for cash an empire which embraced all of civilization 
then existing in Europe; and whenever, by the universal judg- 
ment, riches shall take permanent rank above intellect and 
learning in this country, a republic will be in danger of re- 
peating that history. 

SCHOOLS FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION NEEDED. 

But every effort to popularize university education will be 
abortive, unless a healthy public sentiment shall build up in 
Texas academies and preparatory colleges, in which material 
for universities may be supplied. What avails it to fill our 
university chairs with the ablest talent in America if we re- 
quire it to perform here such work only as is done in prepar- 
atory schools? Aud yet this is just what these learned gen- 
tlemen have been partially doing, for the want of material 
prepared for instruction in a university course, i^cademies 
are needed to give secondary instruction so necessary in the 
preparation of those who come here, and who will afterwards 
become controlling classes in government. For there always 
should be, and will be, such classes, who are managers of 
capital, leaders in enterprise, chiefs in civil office, teachers 
in art and science, and in social and mental refinement. That 
leaders are sometimes uncouth and unlearned only proves 
the general rule that educated brain controls ignorance by 
the very rarity of the exceptions ; and the State always s lif- 
ers in the end from the exception. 

What shall it avail us to keep wide open the doors of the 
University for the youth of Texas if we must forever be en- 
gaged in the work of preparing them for entrance upon a 
university course after their arrival ? It is time that zeal for 
education should begin to become a zeal which will direct 
some of its energies to building up grand furnishing schools 
for the reception of tiative talent, which now hungers unsat- 
isfied, finding but few half-way houses between the common 
free schools and the universities. 



22 

Young Gentlemen of the Literary Societies : 

Nowhere on earth are students surrounded with eliniatie 
and natural conditions better adapted to iutellectal progress 
than here at the University of Texas. If we descend from 
this altitude and go nearer the equator, to where nature sup- 
plies without labor the fruits of earth, man becomes ener- 
vated and his mind torpid under an ardent sun. In a more 
rigorous climate and on an unfruitful soil, all his energies are 
required to supply physical wants, and short time is left 
for mental culture. But here, at the foot of these mountains, 
on a fruitful soil, where the cooling breeze of every night 
refreshes both body and mind for another day of toil, our 
posterity may, if it will, realize our dream of a civilization 
that will be permanent and constantly progressive, for it 
will be founded on liberty, education and competence. 

Wheu, in after life, your thoughts revert to your alma 
mater, the most pleasing memories will be those of your lit" 
erary society. There the consciousness of power is perhaps 
first felt, and the fires of ambition first lighted. From the 
hard study of classic and scientific lore, you will turn for 
pleasure, relaxation and profit to the exercise and interchange 
of views on literary subjects, and in your societies cultivate 
that habit of independent thought, so indispensable to the 
formation of elevated character. In your classical and scien- 
tific course you memory will be trained and your mind stored 
with facts, which, while important, are not more so than the 
volumes of human experience which you may read, and the 
great book of human nature which you must study. 

Master, with fixed resolve, the learning of the class room, 
but neglect not to cultivate that taste for literature without 
which no man can be an accomplished scholar. The 
Georgics and iEneads of the friend of Maecenas, the Odes of 
his great contemporary, or the martial hexameters of the 
blind Greek, which, for a thousand years, inspired his people, 
you will learn, but in languages of the silent past. Neglect 
not the epic and pastoral bards of your own people, while 
studying Hume with Macaulay and with Greene, their history. 



Consider from what a heroic race you sprung when you see 
a little Island in the north of Europe whose Shakespeare has 
delighted, instructed and inspired the world, and whose peo- 
ple, led by statesmen and soldiers trained in her universities, 
to-day hold a quarter of this globe in their grip. With the 
accomplished Gibbon explore the causes which destroyed 
the greatest republic of antiquity, and with Buckle and 
Greene learn how and why civilization has advanced. For I 
hold that no learning is more useful to a free citizen than that 
which instructs him how man has been elevated, and of the 
causes which from time to time have enslaved him. 

The human mind to have full development must have 
pleasing exercise, and thus it may gather wisdom from recrea- 
tion. 

The gentleman who steps upon the stage of action from 
the university, cuts but a poor figure when he exhibits him- 
self as a bundle of classical and scientific facts and nothing 
more. Learn that persistence is the key to success, and fix 
your ambition above and beyond self; for to what good pur- 
pose will you have lived, if when death comes you can point 
to no act which has advanced or benefited your race ? 

Whatever religious faith may be true, that surely must be 
false which does not inspire an ardent love for man in his 
ignorance, his misery and degredation. Next to the religion 
of God must be that of humanity. Will this inspire you? 
Behold I the harvest is plenteous !!! the wilderness is at last 
people^, and the horrid grinding and clash between capital 
and labor, is heard in the heart of great cities, from the depths 
of mines, and wherever machinery gathers wealth. 

You inherit the blessings of free government, but will 
be confronted with the unsolved problems that threaten it. 
Prepare well, therefore, for the great future of your man- 
hood here on earth, and remember that while you are citizens 
of the grandest government in all this world, you are also 
citizens of a State the most heroic and the proudest of them 
all. Love Texas for her flowery plains and her free streams, 
for her chivalric past, her happy present, and for the glorious 
promise of her future. Love her from the mountains to the 



24 



sea, as one Texas, matchless in her beauty, free as this moun- 
tain air, and peopled by men glowing with patriotism and 
sell-sustaining in their manhood ! 

Here Science wandering found her chosen seat, 
And spreads her store of blessings at your feet ; 
Wheels our rich products o'er each distant deep, 
Even speeds our fancies on the lightning's leap ; 
Prevents division with her iron bands, 
And helps us labor with her thousand hands ; 
With Art, her sister, walks through all this State 
To help us prosper and to make us great. 



t 

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